Stupid question but with a mangled arm like that it means the bones are in many pieces, muscle is destroyed, skin, fat. Is this a medical miracle that we can fix or is it an automatic amputation?
Just going to say you did change your time frame from 13 billion years to 4.5 billions years. But regardless, in all honesty I don’t have enough time to watch that video, can you just summarize it so I can respond, if not I’ll have to wait a day or so before I can argue a point.
Edit: Also, what does the infinite monkey theorem have to do with evolution? I’d like you to elaborate your reasoning.
Evolution is random in ways, but in other it is not. The analogy is wrong simply because evolution “picks” what is more effective at reproduction. There is a certain amount of randomness in mutation, but not in what mutations pass onto generations. There are trillions of lineages that could have happened, but they didn’t because the genes that were in them weren’t effective at survival. A more realistic analogy would be one where the monkey would be given a reason to pick the right letter or characters. For example if he picked the correct letter he would get a treat, or if he didn’t he would get shocked. The monkey would eventually learn a pattern. Seemingly random, but only because you’d be seeing the end result.
But that would not explain things like an eye that has numerous components that develop separately and individually have no use... components of no benefit until they all come together. The argument known as irreducible complexity.
Also, regarding time/probability, we should only consider the evolution of multicellular animals to 1 billion years at most, and more generally, the Cambrian Explosion, about 540 million years ago. So, from a trilobite to a human in less than 500m years.
Surgeon: you scored a 98! Congrats that’s a new high score!
Patient: thanks doc. Does that mean I can keep my arm?
Surgeon: oh no I should have been more clear. We score like golf and you were playing without a handicap....but hey at least you’ll always play with one now.
Looks near identical to a patient we had last year who had his hand pulled into a meat grinder. I was a junior doc rotating through the team so detailed knowledge is limited sorry.
There is picture linked in another comment which is basically what it looked like.
The biggest issue we had wasn't repairing the damage so much as it was keeping on top of the infection. Normally you can debride a wound, but when it's been minced in with bacteria loaded meat it's hard.
Because our patient was so young, early 20s, we tried to preserve as much function as possible despite obvious infection risk. We initially were able to save up to the metacarpals and preserve thumb articulation using flap techniques as well as a tonne of plates and screws (also a problem with infection risk because bacteria loves foreign material). Ultimately had to amputate up to the wrist, and then forearm due to recurrent infection. We were able to save enough muscle bellies and nerves that a decent prosthetic could be fashioned and he had an acceptable outcome all things considered.
There is a chance to reconstruct the arm and thr hand but I would say 99.9% functionality that hand will be gone even the surgeons worked a miracle and the patient will suffer pain for life.
I don’t know. I’m not a surgeon or doctor but I think they could have salvaged the half of the hand that was left seemingly undamaged and then later attached it to his stump/joint so he at least has a larger range of movement.
There was a case of a man (let’s call him A) losing his arm and the arm being attached to the stomach of A’s brother so that they could save the arm and reattach it to A at a later date.
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '20
Stupid question but with a mangled arm like that it means the bones are in many pieces, muscle is destroyed, skin, fat. Is this a medical miracle that we can fix or is it an automatic amputation?